How to get Lara Croft naked - and six more ridiculous gaming myths, lies and urban legends

REAL OR FAKE: There's been countless video game myth and urban legends down the years

For almost as long as games consoles have existed so too have the ridiculous number of claims of supposed secrets embedded in them and the games they play.

Some were utterly harmless such as a neat trick or two which will help unlock a secret level in Mario.

But every now and again you'll get some down right bizarre and scandalous rumours, many of which bafflingly gained enough traction down the years to pull the wool over the most gullible people in the world.

Here we run down seven of the strangest rumours which have at one stage or another gripped the gaming world.

Eidos

IN THE BUFF: Gamers were convinced of a secret Lara Croft nude code

1. HOW TO GET LARA CROFT NAKED

Back in 1996 "Tomb Raider" Lara Croft was widely considered a bona fide sex symbol. Hell, she was even featured in Playboy.

It's no surprise then that gamers all over the world couldn't wait to see what the busty adventurer might look like in the nip. And soon enough rumours of an elusive code was circling that would strip Lara down to nothing but her birthday suit.

Despite the game containing several codes that gamers could enter, one which disrobed the female Indiana Jones was, of course, a load of old cobblers.

Still, it didn't stop modders eventually getting her kit off when they got their hands on the PC versions of the game.

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Sony

UNCHARTED 4: A THIEF'S END - The Indiana Jones of video games is back and, by the look of it, better than ever - RELEASE DATE: April 2016

EA

CURSED: Ever today people believe Madden cover stars are doomed

2. THE CURSE OF MADDEN

You might think that as a professional NFL player the prospect of appearing on the cover of EA Sports Madden football game might be up there as one of their greatest achievements.

However, that might not be the case because of the supposed Madden curse, which has supposedly caused the careers of several of the games prominent cover stars to take a complete nose dive.

It began with Garrison Hearst, the first player to appear on the game’s cover back in 1999, who soon after broke his ankle and was out of action for two seasons and ever since has been claiming the career of several NFL players.

We're clueless when it comes to America football, but CBS Sports offer a pretty decent explanation of how these sports stars careers went sideways if you fancy some further reading.

It hasn't been every star mind, in fact in 2012, Calvin 'Megatron' Johnson broke a 17 year old NFL record whilst also fronting the game.

So, a load of old hogwash. Well, we think...

THIS BLOWS: Huffing and puffing into your gaming cartridge doesn't work

3. BLOWING IN GAME CARTRIDGES

We've no idea where people got the idea that blowing into video game cartridges would improve a non-working game that was on the fritz, but it's definitely a thing that many people have accepted as a matter of fact.

The truth however is that the common cause was that connector pins on the cartridge weren't lining up. But this didn't stop people collectively huffing and puffing like a big bad wolf into every glitchy game from the 80's onwards.

If your sitting there thinking it was successful for you in the past it's likely because the moisture/spit blown into the cartridge somehow aligned the pins to align and bringing your game back to life working.

However, over the years 'blow damage' could and would actually degrade the games. Which is probably why console instruction booklets since the NES onwards have all explicitly instructed gamers not to blow into your game cartridge.

Bethesda

RUBBISH: Fallout 3 eerily predicted one celebrity death

6. FALLOUT 3 PREDICTS THE FUTURE

Not even Bethesda's RPG set hundreds of years in the future in a post-apocalyptic wasteland could escape the grips of mass gaming hysteria.

Whilst wondering the game you would invariably pick up radio signals and should you follow a series of very particular steps the GNR station would begins to transmit heavily coded transmissions and some morse code.

One gamer with far too much time on his hands noticed that one such code perfectly predicted the precise time and date of Gary Coleman's death. Spooky right?

Well yes. We'll give it that one, but the numerous other predictions from the game such as the death of Queen Elizabeth II (who's still going strong) and, of all things, Britney Spears winning an Oscar (yes, really) were way, way off.

Youtube.com/Lord Karnage

TRICKED: Xbox 360 gamers were duped into believing the red ring of death was fixable

7. XBOX TOWEL WRAPPING

Many of you may recall that the Xbox 360 suffered from one incredibly irritating fault. Namely, it broke itself. A lot.

The dreaded 'red ring of death' was a manufacturing issue which was a result of consoles not dealing with it's internal heating properly and eventually lead to a slow and painful death.

Naturally thousands of seriously peeved 360 owners were trying every trick in the book to save their precious console and save date.

The most ridiculous of all solutions involved wrapping the 360 in a towel, turning it on, leaving it for a while, turning it off again and then (apparently) it would spring back to life.

However if you haven't already worked this out yourself, the rumour was a load of old rubbish.

How do we know this? Because many moons ago we too gave it a whirl in a desperate attempt to recover our save data following a red ring of death. And the disappointment of it failing still stings even today.